SAN FRANCISCO—As part of a disaster response to the COVID-19 pandemic, around 3000 San Francisco city workers are getting re-deployed to different jobs in order to help fill needs created by the pandemic.
It is the largest disaster display in the city’s history. City officials have referenced that two other smaller-scale redeployment efforts occurred for the 2019 Kinkade Fire in Sonoma County, and for the 2013 fire in Stanislaus National Forest.
City workers have been re-assigned to what is called, “Disaster Service Workers,” in an effort to shift workers to perform more urgent needs within the community.
As part of this redeployment effort, over 100 staff from San Francisco’s Public Library system have been re-assigned to work at the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank to help deliver food to senior citizens who are sheltered at home. Other library staff members have been shifted to jobs that involve monitoring hotels for the homeless, or doing COVID-19 contact tracing.
Other examples of re-deployment include chemists being asked to make hand-sanitizer which are distributed to other essential workers, and workers from the Public Utilities Commission who have added pipelines to supply drinking water from fire hydrants in the Tenderloin District.
“I am proud of all of our staff, their willingness and ability to step up during this emergency to do all the things that need to be done,” said the Director of the Division of Water Quality, Andrew DeGrace, in a public statement.
